Crossing the River Styx Into Brooklyn
by DragonyPhoenix
Summary: Drusilla travels to Hades, looking for the sisters that Angelus killed.
1. Chapter 1

Although she'd never been patient, Drusilla waited in the long line. There were mores to be observed and she very much didn't want to be left behind. She'd already paid her two coins. There had been some dispute about that but Drusilla had come prepared, having taken the wallet from her dinner in case it would be needed. She looked very carefully but didn't see him with the rest of the dead.

The ferry was much larger than she'd expected but of course it would have to be given the number of souls that departed each day. A wistful longing made her want to look back, to find someone to wish her bon voyage, but there was nobody who would approve of, much less celebrate, what she was doing. Still, it was only in leaving the dead lands that you couldn't look back. Even while crossing to Hades, you were allowed to review your life so, as the ferry abandoned the shore, she gazed behind at its wake, which was full of dead fish, and the seagulls that swooped down to feed off the chum. "Will you fall as well?" she asked the birds, wondering if following so closely behind death would harm them but they continued diving into the dark river.

Staring at them intently, Drusilla tried to intuit if they really were birds. She certainly hadn't been expecting anything so lively here in the gateway to the underworld. The stars would sometimes sing to her, the wind often whispered in her ear, but those birds stubbornly remained just that, mere birds.

She started railing at the birds, telling them they had to show their true faces, when someone yelled from behind her, shouting that passengers had to remain on the far side of the chain. Was he afraid the birds would swoop down and carry her away as well? Dru looked up, smiling, ready to greet her sister harpies but the sky was clear. Disappointment made her careless and when the man crossed the deck to grab her arm, she flashed into vamp face and growled at him. He screamed and scrambled away, tripping over his feet and falling on his back.

She put her finger to her lips and whispered, "Shhh," but more and more of the dead came out and started screaming as well. "This just won't do," she admonished them. The journey was supposed to be stately and dignified, not full of screams. There was only one thing for it. If they weren't willing to act formally, as required by the occasion, she would have to convince them to be solemn.

It turned out that the dead were as easy to kill as the living.

With no one at the helm to steer, the ferry drifted off course. Drusilla could sense her one chance to save her sisters drifting away with it. As tiny dinghies, full of loud noises and bright lights, pulled up alongside, Drusilla leaped off the deck into the dark water.

It was very quiet at the bottom of the river. Puffs of muddy water tripped up behind her footsteps, darkening her passage so that, if she'd turned back, she wouldn't have been able to see the few darting fish, the weeds that unexpectedly thrived at the bottom of that river, or the plastic and cardboard and Styrofoam detritus drawn there, somehow, from the living lands. The muddy water grew in both size and strength the further she walked until it twirled around her, darkening her way so that even she couldn't tell which way she meant to go. "No, I paid my two coins," she tried to shout but the water carried her words away until she understood that the payment only meant she was allowed to arrive by ferry and that the waters would never let her in without help.

She ripped off the sleeves of her mourning gown, which she had worn specifically to greet her sisters, and allowed her arms to sway in the current, pleading for help in the only way she could. As she spun at the bottom of the river, they writhed like snakes, like sea serpents, like the weeds she couldn't see dancing at her feet. The currents carried the dancing motions outward and away from her, drawing a distant light to her. The reflection of a star, mirrored in the water, she first thought as she set her dancing steps to trail after it but, when she caught up, she saw that it wasn't a star at all but a jellyfish. It drifted in the currents, unable to lead her any further along her path, but she no longer needed its help. Raising her eyes, Drusilla saw an ethereal glow, which could only be her destination.

Seeing how close she was, Drusilla took off her shoes and left them there, below the drifting arms of the jellyfish. One did not go shod in the dead lands. The river became shallower as she approached the shore and her head broke free of the dark water. Up ahead she saw a lighthouse, a beacon welcoming her as she stepped up onto the beach and left crisp footprints behind her in the sand. "You're much shorter then I expected," she said. "Why I could jump up and steal your light with hardly any effort at all but I don't need help to see in the dark," she added before turning her attention to the country before her.

Disbelief washed over her. It wasn't at all what she'd expected. So many buildings. She started to doubt she'd made it at all but no, that couldn't be true. The defenses of the dead lands were deceiving her, trying to convince her to leave before she'd found her sisters, but she was already dead herself and so could stay as long as she needed.

Knowing the dead would try to stop her, she wandered through the shadows of Hades, avoiding the streets, which were lit by artificial lights. She had no idea how to find her sisters. Given eternity it was possible she'd eventually run across them, even if she did remain hidden, but Drusilla began to fear that this was another trick, another way for the dead lands to stop her. She wouldn't be able to find help like she had in the water but then she heard the dragons roaring, oh so far away. Dragons always captured princesses in the fairy tales. Certain they would lead her to her sisters, Drusilla followed the sounds until she found the place where the dragons roared by, shooting out smoke as they made their terrible way, following Jacob's Ladder dark and straight and terrifyingly true against the stark white stones.

Drusilla dropped down at the edge of an invisible wall, curled her knees around each other, and shivered in the dark. She couldn't ride the ladder to Heaven but that was the only way to reach her sisters. She never knew how many eternities she'd spent there, watching the dragons ascending and descending at the gate to Heaven, afraid to reach out and grab the prize, knowing she wasn't pure enough until she remembered a pilgrimage she'd seen as a very young girl.

The three of them, Abby, Emma, and Dru had been sent to Ireland to visit Mummy's cousins. Abby, the eldest at ten, felt the weight of her responsibility and tried to make them behave but Dru and Emma had run off with their cousin Brigit to see the pilgrims climb the holy hill. Standing off to one side of the path, further than they should have run up by themselves but not so far that they'd get into any real trouble, Dru asked why some of the pilgrims were barefoot. When Brigit explained it was an offering to God and that their feet would be cut by sharp stones in the path as the climbed the hill, Emma started crying but Dru made a silent vow that someday she would be holy enough to offer up her suffering to God.

But I never got the chance, she thought, not before Angelus came and killed us all. With another, brighter thought, Drusilla looked up, her eyes alight with hope. I could make a pilgrimage now, one that would save my sisters. Raising herself up, Drusilla walked to the stony path. Avoiding the Jacob's Ladder, knowing its holiness would surely burn her up, she carefully placed her bare feet on the stones, close to the edge of the path, trying to feel penitent so that God would send a dragon to lead her to her sisters.

She walked on the bright, sharp stones between cool cliffs, eternal and silent, that rose to her right and tiny cathedrals, only two to three stories high, that alternated with the wilderness like beads on a string: the holy creation of God followed by a holy creation of man, trying to reach up to God, in endless succession.

The journey seemed endless and her musings on the presence of the cathedrals, which made that place seem more like a suburb of death than Hades, the actual land of the dead, distracted her from her penance. "Of course," she finally decided, "all those people who were buried in churches must live in them down here but my sisters weren't buried inside a church." Drusilla wondered where her sisters might be and how she would ever be able to approach them. Everything here was terribly holy. If she wandered from her path, she was sure to get burned. The path, she thought in horror as she stopped and looked at the bottom of her feet. They weren't hurt at all. How was she supposed to become pure enough to find her sisters if even the stones wouldn't pierce her skin?

Perhaps the Jacob's Ladder wouldn't burn her up completely but would only harm her enough to purify her. She stared at it for a very long time, afraid to touch it but more afraid that she'd never find her family. Finally she reached out, slowly, hoping that, if it was lethal to her, she'd be able to sense that before she touched it. Her hand drew closer and closer and then rested on the cool track.

Nothing. It didn't burn her. Was there no way she could purify herself? A priest had once told her she was a devil's child but no, that had been Angelus playing a game. Still, what if it were true? Someone like herself, driven by a demon, surely didn't deserve God's mercy. Tears welled in her eyes as she realized that holiness would always be out of her reach.

Turning away from the trail she'd been following, Drusilla looked up to see a star, blurred from her tears but twinkling against the dark sky. Her hand drifted up towards it but it was much too far away, so far she couldn't even hear its whisper. Certain that the star wasn't for her, she wiped her eyes and turned her gaze towards the cathedrals that housed the dead. She'd have to search for her sisters there but she didn't see a cathedral or even wilderness before her. There was a cemetery instead.

"Of course," she whispered. "They were buried in a cemetery so that's where they'd be living." She wandered through but saw only one large tree and elderberry bushes among the graves. "Jacob John Vandermeer, 1654," she read off of one of the tombstones. "You've been living here a very long time." She hoped he would come out of his coffin and speak to her, perhaps direct her to her sisters but nothing moved in the still air. Then she heard the music. Somebody was playing a piano, or perhaps a spinet. Following the sound, she saw one of those tiny cathedrals, only three stories tall, with pointed windows framed by scroll work, ornamental gables, but no leering gargoyles. She knew that gargoyles kept demons out of churches and was glad this one had none because she so wanted in, certain she'd find her sisters there.


	2. Chapter 2

She rang the doorbell and the music stopped until a cheerful voice rang out with, "I'll get it Teddy, dear."

As the door opened, Drusilla peeked around it, impatient to see her sister after such a long time. There she was, Abby, tall and lean and dark but, as the door swung fully open, she saw that the woman was older, shorter, and chubbier than she remembered. "Abigail?" she asked uncertainly.

"Why yes, dear. I'm Abigail Brewster. Are you here for the toys?"

"Toys?" Drusilla asked.

"Yes, for the orphans. Although I think you'll need someone else to help you carry them. They're back over there, next to the clock. Why don't you come in and see for yourself?" Abigail replied. Entering the home, Drusilla looked over towards the music, to see a man, dark-haired and wearing a formal suit, playing the spinet.

As if he could feel her gaze on him, he stopped playing and turned, giving her a look. "It's very rude to stare you know," he told her. Drusilla didn't know what to say and so she just kept staring. Why, he's not himself at all, she thought. She could feel the weight of her stare disturbing him until he stood with a dignified humph and walked past her to the stairs where he pulled out an imaginary saber and then yelled "charge" as he raced up to the second floor.

When he slammed the upstairs door behind him, the clock chimed as its minute hand dropped down to the 6. While Abigail traipsed over to fix the clock's hand, Drusilla turned to follow but her attention was caught by a bottle of death. It shone red against the pale walls and Drusilla couldn't think of why it would be there, where everyone was already dead.

Hearing her name called, Drusilla turned her attention back to her sister, who was showing her the toys. Drusilla saw the dolls. Her doll wasn't there but Abby's was, porcelain with golden hair, and another as well, with hair as dark as the wings of a crow. "This is Martha's," she said picking up the dark haired doll while wondering where the name Martha had come from; she was almost certain that hadn't been her sister's name.

"Why yes, dear, it is," Abigail replied, sounding confused that Drusilla recognized the doll. "I had the blond doll, because Martha's hair is light, and she had the brunette because mine is dark."

"Who was at the door?" Martha asked as she stepped through a door carrying a tea tray.

"This young lady is here for the toys," Abigail replied.

"Drusilla, I'm Drusilla." She cradled the doll against her chest, wrapping both arms around it in a hug as if that would bring her sisters closer to her again.

"Well, isn't that nice," Martha said, putting the tray down on the table and joining them. "But dear, your clothes, they're all damp," she added with a look of concern.

"I came through the river," Drusilla replied.

"Oh, well," Martha replied practically as she brought a blanket out of the back room. "You just wrap yourself in this and we'll get you a cup of nice hot tea. How does that sound?"

"Lovely, thank you," Drusilla replied formally, uncertain how she should behave. She'd never thought about what would happen once she'd found her family again, so she dutifully drank her tea while wondering why they didn't seem happier to see her. They were treating her like family, wrapping her in a warm blanket, but there'd been no hugs, no declarations that they'd missed her. They'd always been a close family, touching, walking arm in arm, sharing everything, until she'd seen Angelus and Darla in the street. She hadn't shared that with them, hoping it wouldn't come true and then, in a flash, she understood.

It was her fault. Angelus had killed them, had tortured and destroyed her whole family, because he'd wanted her but she could make amends now. Angelus had become Angel, weak from living off of rats and besides, with his soul hacking at his mind, he'd be too distracted to upset her plans. She could lead her sisters out of Hades and they would be a family again.

The distance they were maintaining was disturbing though. Perhaps they'd be unwilling to leave. Abby had always been stubborn and Martha, no Emma, would likely follow her lead. I shouldn't have waited eighty years to come looking for you but Angelus would have killed you again if I'd come sooner, Drusilla thought. "Have you been here long?" she asked, trying to sound out how Abby felt about the place.

"Oh yes," Abigail answered. "We were born here. Mother and Father," she gestured towards some portraits on the wall along the stairs, "bought this home just after they married."

Drusilla gazed at the portraits, puzzled. The man, almost balding with a bushy mustache, and the woman, with long rounded curls around each side of her head, didn't look anything like her parents. "But those aren't Mother and Father," she cried out.

"Oh no, dear. Those are our parents, not yours," Abigail replied, pouring out some more tea.

Drusilla's hand clenched tightly around the doll until it shattered. The sisters immediately started fussing over her, Martha rushing off for bandages while Abigail took Drusilla's hand.

"No," Drusilla said, drawing her hand back.

"Oh, now don't fuss so dear. We just want to make sure you haven't hurt yourself and Martha is very clever with poultices. You'll be as good as new in no time." Taking Drusilla's hand again, she gently brushed away the dust from the shattered porcelain. After she'd finished, she peered at the hand closely and then held it still, saying, "Why, you're not cut at all. Imagine that."

"Really?" Martha asked, stepping back into the room with a box. "Well, aren't you lucky," she added as she laid the box down on the table and took Drusilla's hand in hers to confirm her sister's conclusion. "Why you're hands are like ice. You must be chilled to the bone."

"Your hands are warm," Drusilla replied. "Why? Shouldn't they be as cold as mine?" The two sisters looked at each other, not knowing what Drusilla meant.

Drusilla threw off the blanket and started pacing the room. "Whatever is the matter dear?" Abigail asked. Dru looked between Abigail and Martha, carefully not looking up at the pictures of their parents, which were wrong, but Abby was wrong too and Martha, Dru had never had a sister named Martha.

Desperate to save her sisters, she ignored her misgivings. "You have to leave this place."

"Leave?" Abigail asked. "Whatever for?"

Drusilla talked fast, trying to spin her words into reality. "I've come to save you, to take you away from Hades. You can have new lives. I'll give you anything you want. It'll be just like it was. Please, come back to the living lands with me. Now. Before it's too late."

"Leave our home? Oh, I'm sure there's no cause for that," Martha replied.

"Indeed not. Why, we've lived here all our lives," Abigail added.

"But this isn't your lives. Don't you see? Angel killed you. This is Hades," Drusilla cried.

"Hades? Oh no dear. I'm sure if this wasn't Brooklyn I'd know all about it," Abigail said.

"And we've never met any angels," Martha said. "I'm certain I'd remember something like that, what with the huge wings and all."

"No no no no no," Drusilla wailed. "You're supposed to come with me, so I can fix it. Put little bandages on your souls and make us all a family again. Angel killed you but this time I'm strong, as powerful as he is, and I can protect you. I can make it all better."

"So," Abigail said slowly, working out Drusilla's meaning, "Your sisters are deceased and you feel guilty."

Drusilla nodded. "Don't you see, sisters? I should have told you as soon as I'd seen the angel of death. I should have been able to save you."

"Oh you poor thing," Martha said as she put her arm around Drusilla's waist and led her back to the couch. "You can't make amends with the dead."

"Ah," Drusilla cried out in denial.

Sitting on her other side, Abigail added, "Indeed not." She put her hand down on Drusilla's shoulder. "You can only go forward and try to do better in the future."

"No," Drusilla shouted. "It won't do. I need your forgiveness, sisters. If you won't give it to me," she trailed off as her gaze lit on the bottle of death. It would never kill her in the living lands but, here in Hades, it could end her forever. She leaped off the couch and had downed half the bottle before the sisters could even begin to react.


	3. Chapter 3

Drusilla held the bottle to her chest, at heart level, and closed her eyes to wait for death. Abigail reached out a hand in a futile attempt to save her while Martha covered her mouth, blocking out her whispered, "Oh dear." They stood silently in a frozen tableau until Drusilla realized the drink hadn't killed her. She hung her head. When she opened her eyes, she found herself staring at the crystal bottle, which she very much wanted to shatter but, realizing it would hurt the sisters if she did, she put the stopper back in and carefully returned the bottle to the shelf.

Martha slowly walked over and put her fingers on Drusilla's wrist. She glanced at Abigail once before asking Drusilla if she knew she didn't have a pulse.

Drusilla, finally convinced these weren't her sisters and this wasn't Hades, stared bleakly at nothing.

"Why, you've been dead all along, haven't you?" Abigail asked. "How unusual."

Crying, Drusilla dropped to the floor. Martha crouched down beside her and, patting her shoulder, said, "There, there. I'm sure it's not so bad."

"Am I to have nothing then? Only maggots worming their way through my soul?"

"I'm sorry we can't give you your family back," Abigail said. Martha pulled Abigail off to the side. They were whispering quietly but Drusilla could have heard them if she'd wanted to. Instead she shut out the world, allowing cold tears to drip down onto the arms she'd wrapped around herself until the sisters came back to her. Abigail held out the blond doll tentatively, saying, "You could have Miss Edith. Obviously she can't replace your lost sisters but maybe she could stand in as a remembrance."

"Miss Edith?" Drusilla asked, looking up at the sisters through tear blind eyes.

"It was my favorite name when I was a girl," Abigail answered.

"I," Drusilla stood up and gave a graceful bow to the sisters. "I thank you," she said, taking Miss Edith in her arms. "You don't mind?" she added, crooning over the doll.

"Oh no dear, we don't mind. She was already in the donation box for charity," Martha replied.

"I should get her home where she'll be safe and sound." Smiling happily at the sisters, she added, "This is very, very clever of you. Angelus will never recognize my sisters in this form. They'll be quite safe."

"That's nice, dear," Abigail answered after sharing a confused look with Martha.

Unseen, two ghosts shimmered in next to Drusilla. Emma, who'd been the youngest of the three sisters, reached out to caress Dru's cheek but, when her hand went through Dru's face, Emma startled and jumped away. Abby, Dru's eldest sister, looked at her with an expression of pity. She spoke but Drusilla didn't hear. "Sister, I'd save you if I could."

"Now young lady, you listen to me. There's no need to go traipsing through the river just to get back to Manhattan," Martha said. "If you walk about a dozen blocks that way," she pointed behind Drusilla, "and then turn left, you'll come to a bridge that will take you back to the City."

"But, Miss Edith," Drusilla cried. "She'll be naughty and look back and then she'll be stuck in Hades forever."

The two ghosts looked at each other and a tear rolled down Emma's cheek. "Can't we help her?" she asked her elder sister.

"But, dear, this isn't Hades," Abigail replied.

Wrapping her arms around Emma, Abby replied, "No. You know that the truly dead cannot meddle in the affairs of the living."

"No, I know she'll be lost to me forever and ever and ever," Drusilla cried out.

"But her companions, they have to see she's wounded," Emma exclaimed.

"Well, how about this?" Martha asked, opening the box she'd laid on the table earlier. "We'll wrap some of this gauze around her eyes and then she won't be able to look back. Will that work, do you think?"

"They don't care enough," Abby said. At her sister's exasperated look, she added, "Certainly Master Spike cares but she was wounded before he'd met her. He'll never think of curing her and Angel, with his human soul back in place, is too busy running from his past misdeeds to consider fixing them."

"Oh yes," Drusilla smiled gratefully. "That's just the thing. Thank you so much," she added Martha wrapped a blindfold around the doll's eyes.

"She'll have to help herself," Abby added.

"But she's mad. Can she?" Emma asked.

While Abigail and Martha escorted Drusilla to the door, Abby started down at the floor for a long moment before whispering, "I fear not." Then, seeing how the words had hurt her sister, she added, "Perhaps. If she follows the advice she received here, this evening, from the Brewster sisters, then perhaps she can find redemption."

Emma, her face full of hope, said, "Let's catch up with her." Putting on an expression of hope that she didn't feel, Abby nodded in return and they slipped through the walls of the house to follow Drusilla down past the cemetery.

Drusilla cradled Miss Edith in her arms and crooned a lullaby as she walked along the dark streets. The residential streets had given way to businesses, most of which were closed by that hour, when the parade, Dru cradling Miss Edith followed by the phantasms of her sisters, was suddenly stopped. A group of three young men stood off to the side, by a doorway, while another, blocking Drusilla's path, removed his hat and bowed down before her. "Well met by moonlight, my lady fair. Wither doest thou goest this enchanted eve?"

Two of the young men snickered at the remark while the third rolled his eyes, saying, "And what kind of English is that supposed to be?"

"Poetical," the first youth exclaimed, raising his arms and staggering backwards before catching his balance. "One should always speak poetically with a charming lady." Turning back towards Drusilla, he added, "My dear, it's late. Please, allow me to escort you home."

Drusilla, feeling the weight of her resolution to do better in the future, was ready to accept his escort when one of the youths who had snickered earlier approached her and made a mock bow. "Oh no, let me," he said as he snatched Miss Edith out of Drusilla's arms.

The ghosts, unseen by all, even Drusilla, glanced at each other before turning back to see what would happen. Drusilla's resolution slipped from her mind as two of the young men tossed Miss Edith between them in a game of keep away.

"Go long," one shouted as the other ran out into the street. As he readied for the throw, Drusilla raced over and, as she grabbed Miss Edith from him, broke his wrist. Eighty years before, Angelus had broken Emma's foot; now it broke again with a loud snap that Drusilla heard but, in her rage at the young men, ignored. As she cradled Miss Edith in one arm, Drusilla grabbed the youth with her other hand, raised him off the ground, and snapped his neck with a flick of her wrist. A sharp cut appeared on Abby's torso and then another, flaying off skin that she'd lost before she'd died.

As the young man who'd run out into the street caught a look at Drusilla's vamped out face, he bolted away while the fourth youth, the only one who was still fairly sober, grabbed at her arm, trying to save his friend. Dropping the dead man, Drusilla sank her fangs into his throat and drank deeply. Where Angelus had raked his fingernails across her, three slashes appeared crosswise on Abby's face, blinding her left eye.

"I say," the youth who'd first addressed Drusilla said. "This all seems rather much." Drusilla turned towards him. At her vampire visage and blood stained lips, he paled as he stumbled backwards.

Slipping back into her human form, Drusilla delicately licked the blood off her lips and told him, "You should run now." As he stumbled down the street, calling out for help, Drusilla casually strolled after. "Ah ah ah," she said, appearing before him just as he was about to make the main drag. He stumbled away from her and into an alleyway, desperately trying doors. As Drusilla stepped out of the shadows, cutting him, tripping him, and shoving him against the brick buildings, Emma's fingers, that Angelus had bitten off and sipped from, fell from her hand, vanishing before they could hit the ground.

At the end of the alleyway, the young man cowered against a metal fence. Drusilla, drinking in the scent of his fear but tiring of his screams, shifted back into vamp face, roughly shoved her lips against his, and bit off his tongue. Letting it drop to the ground, she waved her fingers before his eyes, making jabbing motions until he caught her meaning. As she poked out his eyeballs, he fell to the ground. Licking off her fingers, she told him, "You're no fun anymore."

Her two sisters, bruised, cut, and broken by the tortures that had killed them, held each other, far to gone in their own pain to notice Dru as she carefully checked the gauze around Miss Edith's eyes. "Good, you won't be able to look back and be stuck in Hades," she told the doll. As the ghosts of her sisters faded away, Drusilla rocked Miss Edith in her arms saying, "I need to get you home and introduce you to Spike. I'm sure he'll be quite pleased to make you acquaintance and we will have tea and cakes and be a proper family again."


End file.
